ABSTRACT
Algeria was France’s first and greatest experiment in her second Colonial Empire, and, almost from the outset, was important not only in itself but as shaping the country’s general colonial policy. Algeria proper lies north of the desert, that is, north of the meridian through Biskra: south of that is the Sahara, the land of the raiding Touareg, geographically distinct. Algeria itself is a double ridge of mountains between the desert and the sea. Pere Bugeaud, the Petit Caporal of Algeria, was a curious blend of farmer and soldier, with the instincts of a practical Périgord agriculturist and a weapon of 100,000 soldiers. Nevertheless, in 1871, the Republic had to face the accumulated arrears of forty years of failure in Algeria, and in particular a seething native population. After Bugeaud, the only unconventional spot in Algeria’s history was Napoleon Ill’s dabbling with the idea of an “Arab Kingdom.”
